


and love too, will ruin us

by wizened_cynic



Series: Dress Your Family in Kevlar and Armani [11]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Babies, Christmas, F/M, Gen, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 09:57:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/596392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizened_cynic/pseuds/wizened_cynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reid picked the mother of all Christmas trees. The Christmas tree that probably ate all the other Christmas trees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and love too, will ruin us

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Rossi/Prentiss Advent Calendar. Unrepentently schmoopy, now with 100% more babies!

 

Rossi has always been a light sleeper, so it doesn't take more than a _thwack_ of tiny fingers against his face to wake him.

Even in the dark, he can see Beatrice beaming at him, giving him a gummy smile that would have melted his heart and convinced him to buy her pony if it weren't _four in the fucking morning._

Emily is snuggled up against the other side of the baby and when Rossi makes an indignant grunt, she mumbles, "I fed her. She's all yours."

Which, Rossi acknowledges, is fair enough, since he is completely useless on the food-supplying front and serves mostly as a source of entertainment for his daughter, who is now chuckling to herself manically with complete disregard for her parents' mental health.

"Come on, you." Rossi yawns as he scoops the baby into his arms. Beezus flails with untrammeled delight, karate-kicking Rossi straight in the ribs, and it hurts more than you might imagine. Rossi tries very hard to be annoyed, but fails. After all, he is staring at a chubby-cheeked five-month-old bouncing up and down with the sheer joy of being able to hang out with him.

"Enjoy it while it lasts," Val told him when she came for the baptism. "She won't want anything to do with you in thirteen years."

Still. It is _four in the morning_.

"You know, you've been here for a while now," Rossi says as he lays the baby on his shoulder and totes her out of his bedroom. At least one of them should have the luxury of getting some sleep. "It's about time you learn what nighttime means. Night is when people sleep. Maybe not everyone, but certainly your mom and dad. It is neither the time nor place to party, at least not till you're in college, and I'm dreading the day it happens."

Beatrice considers this as she slurps on two of her fingers, and then proceeds to wipe them on Rossi's beard.

Rossi sighs and nuzzles his mouth against her hand, tickling a laugh out of the baby. It's a sound so pure and clear that Rossi wonders how it is possible that he lives in a world where this kind of true, unsullied love exists alongside such unspeakable evil.

"Do you want to look at the lights?" he asks Beezus when they get to the bottom of the stairs. "And the big tree?"

Beezus gives him a withering look. _I don't care,_ she seems to be saying, _I just want to make sure that you don't get any sleep for next three hours and I'm not even going to cry or whine or do anything that justifies you being pissed off at me. I'm going to be friendly and adorable and perfectly charming and make you feel like a complete asshole if you even think about trying to ignore me._

"We'll look at the lights," Rossi says, resigned. They have about two dozen baby blankets strewn across the house at any given time, and he grabs one of them and lays it down in front of the monstrous Douglas fir in the foyer. It's going to kill his back but he needs to lie down and the wooden floor is warm, the blanket thick and soft with a pink elephant embroidered in one corner.

He stretches out on the floor and places Beatrice on his chest, clasping his hands around her chubby belly. They are both facing the tree, which is about sixteen feet tall and all of Reid's doing. Morgan and the others think Rossi's gone all out since this is the first Christmas tree he has had in over twenty years --- and it's true that he knows Emily wants the whole Christmas experience, stockings hanging from the fireplace and presents under the Christmas tree, a real Christmas tree instead of the scraggly, Charlie Brown one that she had in years past --- but the truth is he had a momentarily lapse in judgment and asked Reid to pick out a tree for him since Reid was accompanying JJ, Will, and Henry to the tree farm anyway.

Naturally, Reid picked the mother of all Christmas trees. The Christmas tree that probably ate all the other Christmas trees.

"It looked smaller at the farm," JJ remarked when Will and Rossi finally managed to set it up in the foyer, the only place where the goddamn thing would fit.

Emily eyed it warily but had trouble containing her smile.

"You said to pick a good tree!" Reid protested. "This one has the perfect branch to trunk ratio, and it smells really nice."

Rossi just grumbled quietly to himself. "There had better not be a family of rabid squirrels living in that thing, Reid, or I will personally make you catch every single last one of them."

Then it was discovered that Rossi didn't have any ornaments for the tree, so he had to give Garcia his credit card --- _another_ lapse of judgment due to baby-induced exhaustion --- and she came back with enough tinsel and colored lights for a small forest in Scandinavia. Jack was more than happy to decorate another Christmas tree and donated some of his handiwork. As Rossi stared at a construction-paper cutout in a shape of a stocking and covered with painted macaroni, his heart swelled at the thought that in a few years Beatrice would be making some of her own.

Right now there is only a ceramic ornament Connie Galen sent him. It says "Baby's First Christmas" and features a scowling Beezus trying to yank the Santa hat off her head, a picture so unflattering that Rossi has made a mental note already to show her future prom date.

Beezus is not terribly impressed with the Christmas tree. She flops around a bit before successfully rolling over onto her tummy. She's better at going from tummy to back and often ends up flailing like an overturned turtle when she tries to roll over, but she's getting there. It's hard to believe that a few months ago she couldn't even lift her head up, and a few months before that she was only wishful thinking, a leap of faith Rossi took hand-in-hand with Emily.

At the same time, and especially in the middle of crying jags that could last up to two hours, it seems like time will never pass. That time has never passed. That he has always been Beatrice's father and he has always had Emily, his Emily, but then he remembers a time when he didn't think any of this was possible, when he believed that Christmas would always give him nightmares, that he made fantastic decisions when it came to wine but terrible ones when it came to marriage.

He's not sure when he drifts off, but he jerks awake at the sensation of something being draped over him. At once he tightens his grip on the baby, panicking at the thought of Beezus rolling off and cracking her head open on the wooden floor. There are a million permutations of that nightmare, all of which culminate in him being a negligent parent.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. It's just me."

He blinks another few times until Emily's face comes into focus. Her hair is still mussed from sleep and her eyes look bruised with lack of rest. She looks as beautiful as he has ever known her to be. The weight on his chest is lifted as Emily gently shifts a now-sleeping Beatrice into her arms.

She sits down next to him, cross-legged, baby balanced in her lap. He can still see the thin smile of a moon through the skylight, but the sky is already lighting up, black fading into purple into pink.

"There's room on the blanket for one more," Rossi says, patting the place next to him. "Fantastic view from here."

"I think I'll skip," Emily tells him. "I don't think my back can handle it. Plus, this one is going to want to nurse soon."

"Stay here for a while." Rossi takes her hand and kisses her fingers, starting with her thumb and making his way to where she wore her wedding ring. "This tree is really something, isn't it? Sorry that my sisters decided to bail on us, though, and you don't get the whole big family Christmas you were looking forward to."

"It's all right," Emily says, leaning down to kiss him. She's upside down and the position is awkward but her lips are soft and warm and he drinks in the scent of her milk and that perfect baby smell that Rossi has gotten addicted to. "You're my family."

 

_“Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us._  
 _These, our bodies, possessed by light._  
 _Tell me we'll never get used to it.”_

_\- Richard Siken, Scheherazade_


End file.
